The road to Mount Yanbushi 山伏

Would you believe it’s been over a year since I’ve started a fire? To me it sounds like, if I’ve ever heard- malarkey! But- for a year I was working 7/7 at two to three jobs and going to school 5/7, leaving only national holidays to get out of the city. However last weekend we (I, sleepily) slipped out in the middle of the night and hit the highway. Our destination was Mount Yanbushi, which takes about four hours and a pretty number in highway tolls- but the cool and fresh smelling air along with the sight of the towns lights, lying low between mountains, quickly awoke something inside of me and I felt as though I had not been sleepy for the last few hours but instead, the last whole work week and only now was I being pulled out of my slumber. We drove all the way around Mount Fuji, which was down to its waist snow capped, providing an impressionable contrast to the all black surroundings of clear night sky and the modest mountains around us. Much of my time was spent back straight and eyes peeled for its appearance, not sure from which side it would flash- attempting (and mostly failing) to capture its glimpse.

After the highway, we followed a mountain road for about an hour- which is always a love and hate thing for me. The curvy roads are half fun and half scare the shit out of me. This is a TWO WAY ROAD pictured ahead and there are lots of sharp corners. As a Canadian- who keeps a space pillow of one to a thousand car lengths around me at all times when driving (Okay Tina, minus my two accidents 😬) the drive down these little roads leaves me with little gasps and grasps for Mairus arm.

We found the turn-off for the entrance to the hike though and slowed to a creep in the coup, admittedly scraping the bottom of the little guy more than once- and towards the end of the road -after passing a few cars who decided to call it quits on the road that was getting rougher and rougher- we came to a huge f*** up hole in the road and Mairu had to skillfully maneuver one wheel up on the curb(?) and after spinning out just a bit and gravity pulling my head sideways a tad we got up and over the hill to find a little snow speckled plateau of a parking lot, with mountains-larger than before- looming around us and accompanied by the sound of a river, which-looking down, you could see flowing in its bed, which laid in a valley, to one side.

Albeit the small sound of the river, my awareness of the silence was rather large-and with the air cool enough to slow my fingers, without any word (as we both know the drill) we set out under the bright (maybe a day off) full moon, to look for firewood.

Mm contentment.

And in the morning, we awoke (a little late) to a beautiful beautiful day and began our preparations for the 2000m hike up the icy Mount Yanbushi!

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